SOCY1002 Study Guide - Final Guide: Catherine Hakim, Advanced Capitalism, Labour Power
The Future and Changing Nature of Work
Precarious Labour
There has been the change of an increasingly precarious nature of labour
• Precarious labour: work is becoming increasingly precarious – refers to unstable, irregular,
increasingly casual, work/life balance is becoming irregular
• Due to the transformation in advanced capitalism as a result of globalization, advancements in
technology and changing modes of economic and political governance – it has resulted in an
increasing number of workers in contemporary society who are involved in casualized, or irregular
labour. (Gill and Pratt, 2008)
• The increasing flexibility in the contemporary Australian workplace has been a consequence of more
Australian having to accept precarious employment. (Greig, 2013)
• Precariousness in the workplace covers a range of part-time and casual jobs, offered without long-
term security o the entitlement guarantees that workers receive under awards – e.g. penalty rates,
holiday leave. (Greig, 2013)
• Precariousness in the workplace raises ethical questions and issues where workers could potentially be
exploited and underpaid/mistreated
• One in four Australian employees was casual by 2007 – up from less than one in five in 1988
• Many workers consider precarious forms of work on offer as employment of the last resort (Furlong
& Kelly 2005, Taylor, 2012)
Leisure/Work Boundaries Blurred
Overtime, there has been an increasing of blurriness between the leisure and work boundaries and the
different expectations of this balance between men and women over time is clear.
• Since the end of the Fordism mode of work in the 1970s, sociologists have debated the nature of
changes in workplace relations. (Greig, 2013)
• Edgar, 2005 and McKnight, 2005 note that those who advocate redesigning the balance between
domestic arrangements and paid work base their critique on the premise that people should work to
live, not live to work
• One response some families have adopted to this work-life challenge involves withdrawing labour
power from the market and living a less frenetic and more self-sufficient life
• The reinforcement of the asymmetrical nature of the ideal contemporary family is highlighted as the
balance of men’s work/life balance tends not to be focused on
• There is a common view that a good mother ‘gives’ or ‘devotes’ time to children whilst good fathers
‘make’ or ‘find’ time. (Greig, 2013)
• Catherine Hakim (2000, 2006) has argued that approximately 70% of British couples with children
negotiate this work-family balance through males retaining a full-time job while women shape their
paid-work patterns around the needs of the evolving family
Immaterial Labour
Maurizio Lazzarato highlights that there has been a historical shift where there has been a movement
from more manual labour to more technological methods, making the workforce more transparent.
Roles in the workplace have also become more flexible, so the roles are less strict then they used to
be.
• Immaterial labour: is defined as the labour that produces the informational and cultural commodity
– which refers to two different aspects of labour:
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1) Regards the “informational content of the commodity” – there have been an increasing of skills
involving the advancements of technology, so the use of cybernetics and computer control
2) Regards the activity that produces the “cultural content” of the content, immaterial labour
involves a series of activities that are not normally recognized as “work” – meaning the kids of
activities involved in defining and fixing cultural and artistic standards, fashions, tastes, consumer
norms, and public opinion
• The role of immaterial labour is to promote continual innovation in the forms and conditions of
communication
• This change in the labour force highlights the historical shift from the production of material things
(Fordist stage) to a post-Fordist stage, which increasingly involves immaterial things (e.g. brand,
lifestyle of the car)
• “Immaterial about – that is, labour that produces an immaterial good, such as a service, a cultural
product, knowledge, or communication” (Hardt and Negri, 2000)
Social Wellbeing and Mental Health
Labelling Theory
Labelling theory suggests that by labelling an individual, this essentially causes more trouble as the
categorization can be harmful, misleading and harsh.
• Sociology allows us to understand the potential detrimental consequences of patients being
hospitalized in a mental hospital – one can understand how the powerlessness, depersonalization,
segregation, mortification, and self-labelling – can be counter therapeutic
• Rosenhan’s (1973) experiment highlighted that the environment controlled the staff’s perceptions and
behaviours in the mental hospital and the labels – sociologists could draw on the fact that in a more
kind environment, one that was less attached to global diagnosis - the staff’s behaviours and
judgements might have been more gentle and effective.
• “The tag profoundly colours others’ perceptions of him and his behaviour” (Rosenhan, 1973)
• “A psychiatric label has a life and influence of its own. Once the impression has been formed that the
patient is schizophrenic, the expectation is that he will continue to be schizophrenic” (Rosenhan,
1973)
• One might question whether patients would actually act sane outside of psychiatric hospitals, but act
‘insane’ in psychiatric hospitals due to the bizarre settings
• Rosenhan highlights the ‘stickiness’ of labels- once individual’s have left the mental hospitals, they
still weren’t noted as ‘cured’ – they were still labelled as sick – he noted that problems don’t cause
labels, labels cause problems
Durkheim and Suicide
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) noted that suicide was in fact a social fact, that it was inevitable going
to happen, and that suicide is a part of society that is statistically going to happen.
• Durkheim discovered that suicide rates:
- Higher in men than women
- Higher among people who in love in cities than the country
- Higher during periods of peace rather than war
• Durkheim highlighted that integration within society decreases the chance for suicide, community
protects from suicide
• Durkheim highlighted that there were four types of suicide:
1. Altruistic suicide: too much integration
2. Fatalistic suicide: too much regulation
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3. Anomic suicide: not enough regulation
4. Egoistic suicide: not enough integration
• The evolution of suicide is composed of undulating movements, distinct and successive, which occur
intermittently, develop for a time, and then stop only to begin again
• The suicide rate is a factual order, unified and definite – for this permanence it would be inexplicable
if it were not the result of a group of distinct characteristics, solidary one with another, and
simultaneously effective in spite of different attendant circumstances (Durkheim, 1897)
• Modern organic associational bonds often fail to provide individuals with a coherent picture of their
social role (Hinkle & Hinkle, 1968)
- Durkheim demonstrated that his could lead to a sense of anomie – a feeling of social
disorganisation – which could produce a form of suicide he labelled as anomic suicide
Social Conditions
One’s social conditions in terms of their status and environment have a great effect on mental health
and the stigma surrounding it.
• Social position: where you position yourself in society
• One’s social positioning and culture can produce mental disorders as it essentially produces norms
that people can fail to achieve or over succeed at fulfilling
• One might note that mental illness can only be monitored and prevented to an extent due to the social
determinants of mental disorders such as:
- The area within a city where people lived had an effect on the type of mental illness people ere
suffering from
- The structure of a city or particular issues people may suffer from due to the city – e.g. isolation –
impacts the likeliness one may suffer from a mental illness
- In the poorer classes people are more likely to suffer from psychotics (mental illness where they
distort reality) whilst higher classes are more likely to suffer from neurotics (emotions related to
reality)
Relationships, Intimacy and Sexuality
Functionalist Approach to Family
Murdock and Parson’s highlight the functionalist approach to society which notes the trends and
functions of families over time.
• Functionalist approach: trend in sociological research which consists on looking at the functions of
social phenomenon
Murdock
• In relation to family its looking at the sociological functions of family
• Murdock’s theory was that family exists because it allows us to fulfil 4 functions
• Murdock tried to examine family lives in different cultures and tried to identify similarities among
the four functions of family:
1. Sex
2. Reproduction
3. Socialization
4. Economic
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Document Summary
Maurizio lazzarato highlights that there has been a historical shift where there has been a movement from more manual labour to more technological methods, making the workforce more transparent. Roles in the workplace have also become more flexible, so the roles are less strict then they used to be. Immaterial labour: is defined as the labour that produces the informational and cultural commodity. Immaterial about that is, labour that produces an immaterial good, such as a service, a cultural product, knowledge, or communication (hardt and negri, 2000) The tag profoundly colours others" perceptions of him and his behaviour (rosenhan, 1973) A psychiatric label has a life and influence of its own. Once the impression has been formed that the patient is schizophrenic, the expectation is that he will continue to be schizophrenic (rosenhan: one might question whether patients would actually act sane outside of psychiatric hospitals, but act.
